Confessing my first crime

Once upon a time, I thought that not finishing a book you had started was a crime. A social crime on par with stealing, only justified in the most dire of circumstances. Who leaves a story stranded like that? I wondered. What kind of degenerate abandons characters they haven't even met yet?! 

(You probably think I am exaggerating, and I understand that, but I am not. I still do not fully trust People Who Do Not Finish Books On the Regular.) 

I ploughed through Michel Houellebecq's Atomised on this principle -- come to think of it, that may have been the book that broke me (go read some of the reviews and you'll see what I mean. Whatever you do, do not read it.). A short time later, I picked up a book by Richard Powers, the first pages of which had the vaguest scent of Houellbecq's horrifying imagination, and I noped right out of that first chapter. 

So it began.

Next was The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, which I just kind of forgot to continue reading. I was about a quarter of the way through and then I started reading something else, with the intention of coming back to it, and I just never did. This was more a case of neglect than abandonment, but that's still a crime.

Since then, there have been many -- oh so many -- books that I have cracked open and left cracked, with no intention of ever trying to undo my crime, and a small contingent that I plan to visit again. I'm making my way through Hilary Mantel's The Mirror and the Light again (although I confess to taking a quick break to read The Wild Things).

Two of Roberto Bolano's books -- 2666 and The Savage Detectives -- have fallen victim to my Houellebecq-inspired crime spree, as well as The Biographer's Tale by AS Byatt, The Golden House by Salman Rushdie, Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer, Save Me the Waltz by Zelda Fitzgerald, The Birds Fall Down by Rebecca West and the second book in the Last Policeman series.

All, according to the critics, good books, but not enough to hold my attention. See, I'm an editor, which means I spend the whole day reading and rereading content, focusing on words and phrases to try to make them as functional as possible. After a solid eight or ten hours of this, it's hard to get out of that mindset. Truly great books lull that part of my brain to sleep, but good or almost great books leave room for that part of my brain to kick.

So, in the meantime, I have reread a few books, looking for that feeling you get when you read a truly beautiful book. I'm a literary junkie looking for a fix. And finding it in works like The People's Act of Love by James Meek, Marissa Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics and Night Film, Margaret Atwood's MaddAdam trilogy, and most recently, Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.

Do not judge a book by its movie, folks. Even on a second reading, Cloud Atlas is the kind of book I wish I could write, but since I can't, I'll just read it over and over again, finding something new each time.

I am confessing my crime partly because I hope to stop doing it. But, really, I'm just assuaging my guilty conscience so I can sin anew.

The Luminaries

I finished Madaddam. I don't want to talk about it for a while. Which probably means, at the most, four days. Since then, predictably, I have been in a book rut, with reading block and written wordititis (official diagnosis - look it up, after I have created the Wikipedia entry). Granted, this may or may not have something to do with the books themselves. Spoiler alert (post-alert, but you should know better when reading this blog).

Particularly The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton. It isn't a trilogy but it feels like one.

It is beautifully written. So beautiful that it may have been written during the late-ish 19th century. Which is the point, because it is set in the 19th century in a gold mining town in New Zealand, which is arbitrary, unless you're a Post-modernist adopting a vintage voice for effect. The effect being full blown reading block.

As I write this, I am conscious that Mr Murakami sits on my dresser, carving a space for itself in the wood using gravity and its density. That's less a block than terror.

In varsity, my least favourite courses were on Romantic and Victorian literature. (Predictably though, I enjoyed Gothic literature - Wuthering Heights and Turn of the Screw. Ghosts as the projections of psychological neuroses and social dysfunctions, notably patriarchy? Strangely, I am iffy about Jane Eyre for the same reasons, but passionate about Wide Sargasso Sea which was a Post-modernist feminist 'prequel' to Jane Eyre. Basically the wife is victimised which is a prerequisite for moral indignation. Go feminism.)

Back my Point, which is a winding, perhaps circular path, and perhaps just me plowing through bush until I hit my toe on something. I am barefoot. Yes, ok, carry on. The prose of The Luminaries is as winding as my posts. I am 17% through my Kindle version. So far:

A man wanders into a hotel bar in a town with one main road and a jail. The men already in the room have gone to great lengths to keep everyone out of the room and they're not very good at disguising this. (When you fake-read a paper, move your eyes. Amateurs.)

Said man is interrogated and brought into their confidence.

So they embark on a story in a story (we're on 12% at this point and I think, thank goodness, the narrator is finally going to introduce the conflict).

But NO! We learn about everyone's business in this town and very little about the important stuff. Or what I presume to be important, because it could turn out the missing dress case is the important stuff. I don't care. Mislead me. Just mislead me with something.

See, what I disliked about Pope, Coleridge and Wordsworth (I never even touched Swift because I could feel it was boring from a distance. Wish I had had the same premonition about Heart of Darkness) was that they padded. Seriously, that's a cloud. Your poetry, like a cloud, drifts over and above the poem without actually having a relationship with the poem, except to the extent that it blocks out the sun sometimes. The sun also being tangential to your existence fyi.

My argument is tenuous, I see that. But equally tenuous is the link between my attention and the author's waffling.

You obviously noticed I said books earlier (take the credit for being observant, you). I never finished V. I never finished it because it was too soon after The Goldfinch; if I didn't read it for one day I forgot what had happened and had to reread the fifty pages before it, and because, I confess, when I reread the synopses, I realised I had no idea what was going on. That disappointment was like thinking you understood a sentence in Ulysses and realising you had transposed two words in your head and it makes no sense now, but with less street cred.

On the up side, I realised I don't just read for themes and characters - insofar as they relate to themes - as I have always believed. I do care about plot. I want an introduction, conflict, exposition, climax and resolution. I want to be tossed around by the tide in addition to being conscious of the chill of the waves, the foam in my nostrils and that I can't feel my toes or fingers.

The Luminaries was nominated for the Mann Booker Prize and V is a classic. So, the books themselves are not bad. I assume. Book people aren't easily bribed, because there's no benefit for the briber. I can see the value of Pope, Coleridge and Wordsworth (not Swift or Conrad - the cartoon version of Gulliver's Travels is creepy (why do people not see this?) and Conrad cannot write (why does no one see this?)), but I just don't value them.

I have always said it's dangerous to review a book before you have read it. Or made it past 20%. But then I wouldn't have anything to blog about. Look forward to my retraction. Or the repetition of certain metaphors, because as a writer, I believe extended metaphors are important. Not more important than plot but more important than spelling (Word can fix that).

Here is my conundrum (not my Point): my novel is almost entirely observations and walking to and from places. Various characters never reappear and others merely haunt the novel. I don't pad, because there is nothing to pad, except my own interests. Is that daring or uninspired? Exposition or just conclusion? Meh, as long as no one finds this blogpost, they will never know and hopefully some misguided professor will assign my novel and pretend she understands it for street cred. I won't believe her unless she compares me with Swift (not Conrad, never Conrad)).

PS. The cover pics won't load so you will have to do without.